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New Zealand electricity supplier TrustPower has committed to build a $439 million wind power project in South Australia, one of the few renewable energy projects going ahead amid a slump in the price of renewable energy certificates.

Siemens won the contract to build the Snowtown II project, which will comprise 90 turbines with a capacity of 270 megawatts, enough to power about 180,000 homes in the state, Siemens and TrustPower both said in statements on Wednesday.

The venture will supply electricity to Origin Energy, which signed a deal in early May to buy both the electricity and renewable energy certificates generated by the wind farm for 15 years.

The project, located about 160 kilometres north-west of Adelaide, will help South Australia meet its upgraded target for renewable energy of 33 per cent by 2020, after already exceeding its original 20 per cent target.

Go-aheads for new wind farms have been thin on the ground in recent years because of weak prices for renewable energy certificates, which provide extra revenue for developers. A boom in the installation of household solar rooftop panels in 2009-10 resulted in a surplus of supply of RECs, which were snapped up cheaply by liable utilities, which now have enough to last them until the middle of the decade.

TrustPower, whose major shareholder in infrastructure owner Infratil, is an established wind power producer, with several ventures in New Zealand as well as the original Snowtown wind farm in SA and four other development projects in other states.

Construction on Snowtown II is set to start next month and the project will be fully operational by the end of 2014.

The Australian Financial Review

BY Angela Macdonald-Smith

Angela is chief of staff, energy and utilities, based in our Sydney newsroom.